Slashdot Mirror
Content Owners to Charge Royalties for Searching?
dwarfking writes in with a story that follows up on the impact of recent Google events: "Ok, maybe I'm a little dense here, but isn't this plan more of an impact to the content provider than to the search engines. From the article: 'In one example of how ACAP would work, a newspaper publisher could grant search engines permission to index its site, but specify that only select ones display articles for a limited time after paying a royalty.'
So, ok, a search engine company decides it doesn't want to pay royalties and therefore doesn't index the provider's site. Now won't the provider actually lose readers since their articles won't be locatable by search anymore?"
Sounds like one of the dumbest ideas I have heard, this goes alongside the MPAA and RIAA shenanigans.
So using the courts they have failed to get royalties and achieved what they could have achieved with some robots.txt files.
Evil people are out to get you.
There's really not much more to say about this. Let 'em wallow in their own stupidity, and they'll come around. Sometimes, like children, you have to let someone learn the hard way, and they'll never do it again. :)
:(
"You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!"
Side note - anyone else lose their login cookie this morning only forced to log back in and fill out a captcha? Weirdness. Worse, I saw no option for the visually impaired to log in either. Tsk tsk tsk....guys, come on. I'm not meaning to toss flames around, but you've got to provide some sort of opt-out link for those who can't see your captcha images.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Sounds like rounds for suing the search engine for lost revenue to me !
"Your honor, by refusing to pay our fee the search engine is not only depriving us of our fair due, but also giving an unfair competitive advantage to our competitors. We demand that they add us to their search database and pay our very reasonable fee for accessing our pages."
And if anyone mods me funny, well... that's one naive fellow, then.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
These news sites are taking the point of view that not all publicity is good publicity. If they don't want their content to be aggregated into a section of another (and very popular) web site that they feel is encroaching on their business, then who are we to say that they shouldn't try to take action? If google decide to put ads up on Google News, then they'd be making money from others' content, why shouldn't they want and get a piece of that pie?
You mean like robots.txt?
This sounds like willful ignorance. All the search engines mention it as the method to avoid having particular content indexed. They might not read RFCs but a quick peek at the help pages on the search engines in question would've answered this (and squashed the lawsuit) in no time.
My spoon is too big.
"What is required is a standardized way of describing the permissions which apply to a Web site or Web page so that it can be decoded by a dumb machine without the help of an expensive lawyer."
They already have this. It's called the robot.txt file. You can use it to tell search bots not to index you. This just seems to be a richer permissions model, that includes things like caching and excerpting options.
In the longer term, I agree that this hurts content providers more than Google. Overall, it makes the search index less useful. However, it makes the content unfindable. Content that uses this will simply be replaced by content that does not.
Why would Google pay to provide better search results for content? It would make more sense for them to pay for the content direct so that they could have an exclusive. Or for content to pay to appear in the search results, like with Yahoo.
There will always be smaller news outlets who want to get additional daily viewers. They want Google to direct people to their site. If the large news organizations want to opt out, there will always be someone to take their place.
When you look at Google news, you see a brief summary of the news article and then when you click on it, you are directed to that website. The website will earn revenue from their advertising. If they have an attractive and useful website, people may go to their site directly. New unique users. Often I find that after I've read an article I found through a search, I will go to the homepage of the site (through the hacking known as modifiying the URL) and look at their other articles. Most websites would pay Google to have links to them, now some sites want to Google to pay them? Google will just ignore them and their competitors will prosper.
Doesn't slashdot do something similar. Someone reads something interesting on the web and suddenly there's a link to it. I'm sure if some sites wanted to charge a fee to slashdot, they would promptly be ignored.
The idea that comes to mind is revenue stream. Someone working for the news organizations came up with the thought "Google has lots of money, let's take it" and so it began.
This would work fine - *if every content provider did it*. (when I say work fine I mean how the content providers would like it to work.
i.e. Lets say The Guardian the Independent charged a royalty for indexing certain articles. and the Times didn't then when a person searches for something that would under normal circumstances return all 3 content providers articles (say you are searching on current news - or better an archived new story - say the search is for "Falklands War Newspaper Headlines" or something. Instead of getting all three papers returning a result you would get just the one from the times.
Now assuming not everyone knows that certain papers charge search engines for permission to index their content, it will simply look like the Guardian and the Independent didn't report the Falklands War - or whatever you searched for.
Repeatedly this may even turn customers against their traditional sales, especially with more and more people using multiple online papers and buying a paper copy. I mean if you start reading the Times on-line everyday as it is the only remaining fully indexed paper, are you more or less likely to buy it when you decide to get a real copy? I guess it would do wonders for international brand recognition too - I mean if you are not indexed for common searches who is going to know who you are enough to trust you for the occasional bit where you have allowed yourself to be indexed.
Really this is all about the fact that search engines generate advertising revenue for themselves using others content, content providers are now looking and saying -
"hey Google makes X million dollars by directing people to my site and advertising for my competitors, it indexes my content (goggle images / news etc..) so people aren't coming directly to me, maybe If i threaten the source of their content they will pay me and I can finally make some money from this inter web thing without having to actually charge people ourselves!"
I guess this is an attempt to get at the revenue they assumed that they would get from selling content to their visitors directly through online subscriptions which didn't work. (unless you were a specialist or exclusive provider - such as companies providing financial information / stock prices / adult material etc..). It didn't work because others didn't charge, why pay for access to ITV news or CNN online (if they charged) when the BBC or some other organisation offered the same stories (with a different editorial slant..) for free?
What they should be saying is how can I get a search engine to get as many people to my site as possible where I can then try and sell whatever services or exclusive content I want! after all the more page hits the more (theoretically at least) conversions.
Anyway - let them try and charge a royalty - or enforce their rights regarding copyright and prevent thee search engines from making money by including their content in their search engines, it will only harm them.
The internet really is a level playing field, anyone with a good site can get listed on a search engine and get hits - hopefully achieving whatever it is they are trying to do, why do some people want to change it so that it benefits them more? all that will happen is that it will break the way the internet works, or is perceived and damage their own web activities. Plus some content providers simply will never do this (probably at least) the BBC in the UK certainly would find it difficult, so too will other public service information providers (I assume) too so I guess there will always be at least one or two news site out there.
I know I have focused on newspapers here (and that does appear to be the gist FTA) but providers of other content such as music, video, software etc. are in the same position. Problem is the internet using public like getting stuf for free, and probably wont pay for something if they cant have access to it for free for at least a while first.
Ah well, (By the way I'm absolutely
This is on par with charging money for getting lyrics online. Greed never ceases to amaze.
No more nor less stupid than charging money for any other form of recorded music/literature online. A recording artist makes money by selling his sound recordings, a lyricist makes money by selling his text recordings.
If you purchase a sound recording or sheet to learn the lyrics, the lyricist gets paid. If you download a free sound recording or sheet, the lyricist does not.
So the question, as always, develoves back to the root; the inherent validity of the copyright concept, whether or not you think that lyricists should get paid for using their works.
At the moment I solve the issue by forcing you to come to enough of my live performances to memorize my work (at least those that I haven't "given away" by posting on Slashdot), or you could book a lesson, but not everyone sees it that way.
KFG
If they disagree with how Google works, they should block googlebot, or at minimum, create a robots.txt
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"hese media outfits have very talented economists, financialists, and lawyers working for them. These are people who can accurately predict what will happen if the media companies were to take this course of action. They know how consumers will respond, and they know how it will affect their company's bottom line."
I hope you're just trolling. Most analysts in any field aren't worth shit when it comes to making predictions. That's why there are so many product failures every year, and why for every winner in the stock market, there's at least one loser.
Media people are among the most clueless. Take a look at how many movies bomb, at how many magazines die every year, how many tv shows don't go beyond the first season, how many newspapers are having to cope with declining readership
http://www.naa.org/marketscope/pdfs/Sunday_Nationa l_Top50_1998-2005.pdf Sorry, its one of those darned pdfs.
Sample stats:
1998 - 135,000,000 adult population, 92,000,000 readers
2005 - 150,000,000 adult population, 89,000,000 readers.
So, while the potential market has grown more than 10%, their readership has declined 4%.
I use Google News a lot. It makes it very easy to find a news article I would not find otherwise; I get annoyed when Google News shows a site which, when i click on the Article doesn't let me view it because I need to be registered. My solution? Follow the next link as it will likely not have the registration requirement.
News sites are going to have to understand something, except for those sites I choose to go to on a daily basis the rest are secondary. I won't go to them unless there is a story of interest.
News sites which require some fee to be indexed will drop by the wayside as the smaller sites become more available. I stopped going to Forbes a while back because there page caused Java runtime to load in the browser I was using, it slowed the system to a crawl and it was generally possible to read the article elsewhere.
Except for a particular attachment someone may have to a specific site (be it Fox, CNN, Forbes, Toronto Star, whatever) all other articles are read on a whim. On the other hand, it is those articles which would create the opportunity for someone to see the site and realize it is worth a look on an on going basis.
Somehow I think the smarter sites will realize the trick is to get people to stay on their site (by choice) once they get there, rather than charge an indexing service.
Many companies with supposed "very talented economists, financialists, and lawyers working for them" have done things that failed. Look at Sony and their rootkits? In 1986 many "very talented economists, financialists, and lawyers" commented buying a PC software only company, Microsoft, would be a very bad investment. Many people said the same thing about a company that sells over priced coffee -- Star Bucks. A very talented manager at HP ridiculed Steve Wozniak when he designed a personal computer.
Fight Spammers!
I think the news publishers are in a worse predicament, given that 90% of non-local articles are verbatim reprints of AP reports. Unless they are all holding firm, the search engines will see the content. Google, et. al, also has the option of subscribing to AP directly and becoming a true publisher themselves.
Your point is moot as by publishing to a public internet site, you have opted in. Otherwise it would be a VPN or at the least a privileged site protected by a password.
If you have a site on the www, it means it can be queried by ANYONE. Regardless of if you like it or not. To say otherwise would be to broadcast a message on FM radio and complain that someone heard it and spoke about it.
There are ways around this: password protection and robots.txt.
The world does not work for google, rather google works on the internet. If you don't want to put the extra effort in to secure it, then don't put it on the web to begin with or you lose all rights to complain.
Would you sympathize for a bank having all their customer data on an insecure website but blaming it on people who visited the link when they "should have understood they shoudn't have"?
I think that searches such as Google really straddle the line with how they present their search results, presenting content almost like RSS aggregators.
I think it's easy to make a good argument that they want to provide the same type of service but with the added value of more sources, so as to attract eyeballs. Googl's not in it for humanity, you know.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Thats frankly rediculous.
By choosing to post something on a publicly accessible domain without a robots.txt file you HAVE chosen to opt-in. Much in the same way that walking down the street 'opts-in' to being seen by other people on the street. The structure of the internet was designed so that access to most domains was freely available. If you don't like how the internet operates you can choose not to use it. Or if you still want to use it you have numerous options to prevent your content from being indexed (robots.txt) or accessible (restricted access domain, login requirements, etc).
Just like when you go shopping the business retains records of your purchase without asking your permission and it's a non issue. In some arrangements Opt-In makes sense and in others Opt-Out does. Provided the reasonable one is choosen and that one is always available (thus why spam doesn't qualify) it is perfectly reasonable. Just like it isn't a double standard to use a hammer to nail something instead of a wrench, using the proper tool (opt-in vs opt-out) in the proper situation is perfectly reasonable.
Claiming that all Slashdotters are vigourous Opt-In believers and that any modding you get is because we don't like our hypocrisy being pointed out is wrong. If you get modded down its because you argument is faulty, poorly thought out, inflamatory, and stupid.
Regards,
-Dan
Ok, fine, content owners are entitled to royalties from Google.
...as does Jeff Bezos' mum and grandma.
And when writing a story about me, or my company, I deserve royalties too. Sure, you might argue that publicity is valuable, but I say that without ME and my circumstances, these content owners would have nothing to write about.
And, obviously, my dear old mum deserves royalties too. After all, without her genetic contributions, I couldn't exist, couldn't do anything news worthy, couldn't be the basis of a content owner's story.
And lets not forget about Grandma. And great-grandma.
And of course, I am writing this comment on a MacBook, so its only fair that Apple gets a piece of any slashdot ad revenues generated by people reading this.
And, obviously, those interested in clicking on the slashdot ads are using Amazon's patented "click" technology, so they deserve a cut too.
barack to the future?
I don't see how "verifying story" is applicable to, say, AP or Reuters newsfeeds. Those are pretty much blasted equally by small, medium and large newspapers as is (even though they need verification and oh boy, if you ever saw how they castrate content to make 10-sentence detail-less snippet out of interesting 10 paragraph story...). And for those news it does not really matter where you go, you read identical content (hence 50+ articles that start with exactly the same words). For those, the newspaper that will be smart enough to allow indexing and provide access, there will be a windfall of visitors (what they do with them is another matter, but at least they can try to recoup their bandwidth investments through ads). Heck, Reuters has its own web site, and I bet it'll be happy enough to allow indexing.
For local news you pretty much have to go to small sites. The Washington Post for some strange reason does not cover news of, say, Hell, Michigan. So it goes back to local news provider. Which would like to have more visitors, not less.
So... big media entities will keep out of the way of small entities. Users would be able to find pretty much the same content. Where's the down side? If the whole "don't index me, I want to charge for my content" thing leads to growth in small news provider niche, will you really object? Because even if you don't trust your local News 59 Hometown tv newscrew or Mournful Examiner newspaper, being able to read multiple reports on the same event beats one "trusted" source any day.
Hyperom.com
.....Isn't it obvious that these are competitors....
If they are competitors, then search engines such as Google should just de-list that publisher from ALL their searches until further notice from that publisher that they want to be listed after all. If said publisher notices a precipitous drop in their page views, they WILL come crawling back on their hands an knees to be re-instated.
All theory is gray
"The problem is that the search engines aren't TRYING to be publishers."
Sorry, but that just isn't true.
Yahoo quite obviously is a publisher. In fact, Yahoo has formal distribution agreements in place with many news providers, including a number of major newspapers, and pays agencies such as Reuters and the Associated Press a considerable amount of money in licensing fees. The same is true of MSN and AOL.
You may not regard Google as a publisher, but it is. The problem is that Google publishes content that belongs to others.
Google scrapes content from websites and constructs news presentations that include headlines, photographs and summaries that do not belong to Google. It does not secure permission to reuse that content. It doesn't pay the writers or the editors or the photographers or the news agencies.
I'm not at all convinced that the Belgian newspapers are responding to the situation in the right way. But a knee-jerk reaction that Google is good and the publishers are bad is very naive.
If you look at Google's scattered EULAs and TOS documents you'll discover that they are very one-sided. Google can take your content and make pages containing ads. You can not take Google's content (RSS feeds, for instance) and make pages containing ads. If you sign up for Google's advertising programs you're not allowed to disclose certain information about the program to others. You can't put Google Adsense on the same page as any other content-targeted advertising. And so on.
Sauce for the goose is apparently not for the gander. From the Google News terms of service: "For example, you may not use the Service to sell a product or service; use the Service to increase traffic to your Web site for commercial reasons, such as advertising sales; take the results from the Service and reformat and display them, or use any robot, spider, other device or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Service."
Google has made great hay out of its "Do No Evil" slogan, but some of its practices, such as collaborating with governments that do not recognize the fundamental human right of freedom of speech, make me wonder.
The argument that search indexing is good for publishers has also several problems.
First of all, whether it's good or bad for the publisher isn't relevant to the question of legality. If I steal an apple and tell 40 friends how good it is, the market may actually gain new customers and come out ahead. But I'm still stealing an apple. The question of whether Google's screen-scraping amounts to apple-stealing is one for the courts to resolve, and apparently the Belgian courts have taken a position not friendly to Apple.
Second, the typical Slashdot poster's naive assumption that traffic == wholesome goodness isn't true. It doesn't work that way.
Most newspapers, for historical reasons, have an economic model that is built on advertising by businesses that are trying to reach specific customers in a highly restricted geographic region. This is particularly true in the United States; models vary in other countries, but most have a strong regional press.
Because of the global nature of the Internet, the vast majority of traffic brought in by search engines is of no interest to local and regional advertisers.
"Noise" traffic actually works against the site by depressing clickthrough rates and lowering the apparent effectiveness of CPM-based advertising.
As I said, I'm not jumping onto the Belgian publisher's bandwagon, but I'm also not jumping onto Google's. This is not so simple as that.
Google is aggregating the content of the aggregators so that users see googles ads first. If you're looking for a NYTimes article through a search engine, google gets to present you with ads first, before you get the NYTimes page. If your ads are well targeted you make money from some before they see the NYT content (ads are a 1/10000 game). If they de-list NYT as you suggest, they don't deliver ads for NYT customers.
Most of this board is discussing the wrong game. Content is a cost center - content providers will shovel out any shit if it would allow them to keep/grow their ad base. If search engines can get content cheaper they win on cost. If they can deliver more relevant ads they can also win on customer value.
And who, in all likelyhood, is running the same wire service story anyway...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Perhaps his point was that 99% of the slashdot readers are judging this decision based off a 3 sentence summary and about 30 seconds of thought (if that), whereas educated people have been paid to put hours of thought into the decision, which may have some sort of long-term or tangential strategy. It's easy to judge the decision, but maybe there is more to what is going on than we know.
At the same time, my first reaction is that this is retarded.